The difference between clans, families
and septs is the source of many questions as is the question phrased in
one way or another, which asks, "to which clan do I belong".
There are many definitions of clans and families as there are people,
but this article will try to indicate how these matters are viewed in
the Lyon Court.

It should first be recognised that a clan
or family is a legally recognised group in Scotland, which has a
corporate identity in the same way that a company, club or partnership
has a corporate identity in law. A clan or family is a ''noble
incorporation" because it has an officially recognised chief or
head who being a nobleman of Scotland confers his noble status on the
clan or family, thus making it a legally and statutorily recognised
noble corporation often called "the Honourable Clan…" A name
group, which does not have a chief, has no official position in the law
of Scotland. The chiefs Seal of Arms, incorporated by the Lord Lyon's
letters Patent, is the seal of the corporation, like a company seal, but
only the chief is empowered by law to seal important documents on behalf
of his clan. A clan as a noble incorporation is recognised as the chief’s
heritable property - he owns it in law and is responsible for its
administration and development.

So far the words clan and family have
been used interchangeably in this article and this is the position.
There is now a belief that clans are Highland and families are Lowland
but this is really a development of the Victorian era. In an Act of
Parliament of 1597 we have the description of the "Chiftanis and
chieffis of all clannis...duelland in the hielands or bordouris"
thus using the word clan to describe both Highland and Lowland families.
Further, Sir George MacKenzie of Rosehaugh, the Lord Advocate (Attorney
General) writing in 1680 said "By the term 'chief' we call the
representative of the family from the word chef or head and in the Irish
(Gaelic) with us the chief of the family is called the head of the
clan''. So it can be seen that all along the words chief or head and
clan or family are interchangeable. It is therefore quite correct to
talk of the MacDonald family or the Stirling clan, although modern
conventions would probably dictate that it was the MacDonald clan and
Stirling family. The Lyon Court usually describes the chief of a clan or
family as either the ''Chief of the Name and Arms" or as
"Chief of the Honourable Clan - -"

Who belongs to what clan is of course, a
matter of much difficulty, particularly today when the concept of clan
is worldwide. Historically, in Scotland a chief was chief of "the
cuntrie". He was chief of his clan territory and the persons who
lived therein, although certain of his immediate family, would owe him
allegiance wherever they were living. The majority of his followers and
in particular his battle relatively to a neighbouring chief, they would
switch their allegiance to the other chief. Thus we find that when Lord
Lovat took over a neighbouring glen to his clan territory for the
donation of a boll of meal to each family, the family was persuaded to
change their name to Fraser and owe him allegiance - to this day they
are called the "boll meal Frasers". Another example is a
migration of a family of the Macleans from the West Coast to near
Inverness and on moving to Inverness they changed their allegiance from
the Maclean chief to the chiefs of the Clan Chattan. Thus the Macleans
of Dochgarroch and their descendants and dependants are properly members
of the Clan Chattan and not members of the Clan Maclean even though they
bear a common surname.

A chief was also entitled to add to his
clan by the adoption of families or groups of families to membership of
his clan, a good example being the "boll meal Frasers".
Equally, a chief has and had the power to expel or exclude particular
persons from membership of his clan and this included blood members of
his family. It was his legal right to outlaw certain persons from his
clan. This is accepted in the modern sense to mean that a chief is
empowered to accept anyone he wishes to be a member of his clan or
decree that his clan membership shall be limited to particular groups or
names of people. All persons who bear the chief's surname are deemed to
be members of his clan. Equally, it is generally accepted that someone
who determines to offer their allegiance to the chief shall be
recognised as a member of that clan unless the chief has decreed that he
will not accept such a person's allegiance, Thus, if a person offers his
allegiance to a particular chief by joining his clan society or by
wearing his tartan, he can be deemed to have elected to join that
particular clan and should be viewed as a member of that clan unless the
chief particularly states that he or his name group are not to be
allowed to join the clan.

It should also be said that the various
Sept lists, which are published in the various Clans and Tartan books,
have no official authority. They merely represent some person's,
(usually in the Victorian eras) views of which name groups were in a
particular clan's territory. Thus we find members of a clan described,
as being persons owing allegiance to their chief "be pretence of
blud or place of thare duelling". In addition to blood members of
the clan, certain families have a tradition (even if the tradition can
with the aid of modern records be shown to be wrong) descent from a
particular clan chief. They are, of course, still recognised as being
members of the clan.

Historically, the concept of "clan
territory" also gives rise to difficulty, particularly as certain
names or Septs claim allegiance to a particular chief, because they come
from his territory. The extent of the territory of any particular chief
varied from time to time depending on the waxing and waning of his
power. Thus a particular name living on the boundaries of a clan's
territory would find that while the chiefs power was on the up they
would owe him allegiance but - if his power declined retrospectively at
some arbitrary' date which the compiler of the list has selected. Often
the names are Scotland-wide and so it is difficult to say that
particular name belongs to a particular clan. Often surnames are shown
as potentially being members of a number of clans, and this is because a
number of that name has been found in each different clan's territory.
Generally speaking, if a person has a particular sept name which can he
attributed to a number of clans, either they should determine from what
part of Scotland their family originally came and owe allegiance to the
clan of that area or, alternatively, if they do not know where they came
from, they should perhaps owe allegiance to the clan to which their
family had traditionally owed allegiance. Alternatively, they may offer
their allegiance to any of the particular named clans in the hope that
the chief will accept them as a member of his clan. Equally, as has
already been said, with the variations from time to time of particular
chiefly territories, it can be said that at one particular era some
names were members of or owed allegiance to a particular chief while a
century later their allegiance may well have been owed elsewhere.

In summary, therefore, the right to
belong to a clan or family, which are the same thing, is a matter for
the determination of the chief who is entitled to accept or reject
persons who offer him their allegiance.

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